It’s not uncommon for R-rated movies to put out an “unrated” (and therefore sexier and/or bloodier) cut for the home video market. But Mortdecai, unconventional rogue that he is, is going the other direction.

Lionsgate is releasing a PG-13 version of the Johnny Depp flop through Digital HD. You know, to reach all those ninth graders who were dying to see a 52-year-old actor play a character from the 1970s. More on the Mortdecai PG-13 release after the jump. Read More »

If you haven’t been to the movies much this year, you aren’t alone. So far, Hollywood’s 2015 offerings have been pretty lackluster. Kingsman: The Secret Service and Paddington are rare exceptions amiss a slew of big budget movies that have either been terrible, or that just underperformed terribly. Some examples are Jupiter Ascending, Seventh Son, Strange Magic, Blackhat, Mortdecai and Focus.

But it this different than usual? January and February are traditionally two of the weakest months both in terms of box office and critical acclaim. Well, it turns out this year has been historically bad. Pajiba lined up the domestic grosses of the January and February releases, juxtaposed with their rumored budgets, to figure out how much money Hollywood has lost this year. And it’s a lot. Read more about the 2015 box office bombs below. Read More »

If you’re starting to wonder if Johnny Depp is picking all of his movies based on how ridiculous they let him look, Mortdecai won’t do much to dispel that notion. Depp leads the comedy caper as “debonair art dealer and part time rogue Charlie Mortdecai,” who’s tasked with tracking down a painting something something Nazi gold. It doesn’t really matter, because the whole movie is really just Depp’s excuse to sport a fake mustache/accent combo that rivals the one in Tusk. Watch the latest Mortdecai trailer after the jump.

To put it mildly, Johnny Depp is not exactly at a high point in his career. He hasn’t had a solid hit since the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and his last three starring roles were outright flops. But on the bright side, he’ll have plenty of opportunities to redeem himself in the near future.

One of those chances arrives next February in the form of a goofy comedy. Depp plays the title character in Mortdecai, a roguish art dealer racing to recover a stolen painting that could lead to Nazi gold. The first Mortdecai trailer has just been released, and you can watch it after the jump.

Briefly:Johnny Depp‘s last couple years haven’t been so hot when it comes to broad success. He’s had some measure of financial success, and critical acclaim, but rarely for the same project. The Pirates franchise and stuff like The Tourist hasn’t done much to burnish Depp’s star, and smaller films like The Rum Diary haven’t found much of an audience. Rango is among the rare highlights of the last couple years for the actor.

Now he’s in production on Mortdecai, based on the first of three connected novels by Kyril Bonfiglioli. In addition to Depp, the cast features Gwyneth Paltrow, Ewan McGregor, Paul Bettany and Olivia Munn. In addition to the last couple names, a press release announcing the start of production notes that Guy Burnet, Michael Byrne, Michael Culkin, Jonny Pasvolsky, Ulrich Thomsen, and Paul Whitehouse have also signed on.

David Koepp is directing from a script written by Eric Aronson. The film sounds like a bit of a throwback — based on story outline alone, this might be scratching the same itch Depp had when he was trying to put a new version of The Thin Man into action a couple years back. The story is described as: “Juggling some angry Russians, the British Mi5, his impossibly leggy wife and an international terrorist, debonair art dealer and part time rogue Charlie Mortdecai (Depp) must traverse the globe armed only with his good looks and special charm in a race to recover a stolen painting rumored to contain the code to a lost bank account filled with Nazi gold.”

The Lone Ranger was a low point for Johnny Depp, but the actor’s already brushed himself off and moved on. Wally Pfister’s Transcendence is shooting now, Rob Marshall’s Into the Woods enters production later this year, and he’s got David Koepp’s Mortdecai coming together after that.

The last film on that list got a nice shove forward last month when Depp started closing in on a formal deal after years of development. Now it’s picking up even more big names, as Gwyenth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor enter talks to co-star. Hit the jump for plot details and more.

Johnny Depp‘s The Lone Ranger died at the box office last weekend, and looks likely to land as one of his films that finds particularly minor traction in the minds of audiences. In other words, most of the people who’ll remember The Lone Ranger in ten years are those who made and paid for it. Kinda like Secret Window, a decent film that Depp and David Koepp made together almost a decade a ago (released in 2004) but which has fallen between the cracks of Pirates releases and other big-ticket stuff featuring the actor.

Now Depp and Koepp (which would have been a great name for a vaudeville duo) are getting back together to adapt The Great Mortdecai Moustache Mystery, a crime novel with comedic overtones. The resulting film will likely be called simply Mortdecai, and represents the end of a development effort that Depp has been trying to keep moving for a while. Read More »